Political science professor Svend-Erik Skaaning (Aarhus University, Denmark) will be the academic keynote speaker at the high-level conference “Academic Freedom in Support of Democracy” organised by the European Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) in the European House of History in Brussels on Wednesday 4 March 2026.
What trends do you observe nowadays in both democracy and academic freedom?
In what way are democracy and the state of academic freedom mutually dependent? Which of them would come first?
Svend-Erik Skaaning: Democratic countries tend to protect academic freedom more than autocracies. Academic freedom is also relevant for democracy, since reliable knowledge and critique based on careful research can inform political discussion. But democracy is a stronger prerequisite for academic freedom than the opposite.
What, in your view, should be the priority in Europe in order to enhance democracy and academic freedom?
Svend-Erik Skaaning: There are no quick and easy fixes, but I would like to emphasise four areas:
- Prioritise alliances of/with democracies, including the enforcement of focused democratic conditionality in internal and foreign relations;
- Facilitate a vibrant media landscape, especially independent public-interest media;
- Monitor developments in democracy and academic freedom closely based on clear criteria and both qualitative and quantitative evidence;
- Improve the capacity of governance in the form of effective public administration. This is characterised by integrity and the ability to deliver public goods requested by the citizens.
People may understand the word “democracy” differently depending on aspects such as geography, social group, generation. Is there a consensus on what is democracy today? What are the necessary ingredients of democracy?
Svend-Erik Skaaning: Most people agree that free and inclusive elections are part of the defining features and that democracy has to with equality and freedom.
However, when it comes to equality and freedom, people tend to emphasise different things; beyond the common core there are many different understandings as people tend to associate democracy with what they personally value.
The necessary ingredients of modern representative democracy are first and foremost free and inclusive elections, but also political liberties (speech, press, association, and peaceful assembly) and institutional checks on the government that safeguard elections and accountability between elections.
You just co-authored a book entitled “Seven myths about democracy”; what are these myths?
Svend-Erik Skaaning: The key point is that several widespread claims about democracy contain a grain of truth but become misleading because they are typically presented too broadly, too categorically, and without historical and comparative perspective.
These myths are:
- “Democracy cannot be defined”. However, despite being an essentially contest concept, it is plausible to define democracy robustly as rule by the people through free elections. Beyond that core, there is disagreement about additional desirable features (e.g., active participation, social equality, deliberation), but this does not eliminate the definitional core.
- “Democracy has been in grave decline for decades”. But even though there has been a negative trend in the last decade, the idea of a decades-long deep global decline is overstated. The long-run pattern is one of major expansion, with a peak around the mid-2010s and then a more modest downturn than many crisis narratives suggest.
- “Democracy originated in ancient Athens”. While ancient Athens surely mattered historically, modern democracy is not a direct continuation of the Athenian political institutions, and aspects of democracy developed autonomously in different parts of the world both before and after the Athenian experience. Modern representative democracy rests on representation, elections, and consent, which developed through later European institutional history.
- “Democracy is incompatible with major religions”. Yet no major religion is inherently incompatible with democracy, although some religious institutions and interpretations have been anti-democratic in certain contexts. Historical trajectories show substantial variation, change over time, and multiple paths of reconciliation between religion and democratic institutions.
- “Democracy is only for Western countries”. However, while modern democracy emerged first in the West, it is not culturally exclusive. There are many cases of democracy outside the West, and the conditions for democratisation and democratic survival are quite flexible.
- “Democracy is ineffective”. Democracies can indeed be slow and conflictual, but this is not the same as being ineffective. In reality, many claims about authoritarian superiority (including economic performance) do not hold up well empirically, and democracies even tend to have a competitive edge concerning many valued outcomes – especially if the democracy is of high quality and endurance and combined with high levels of state capacity.
- Lastly, the seventh myth states that “democracy’s interwar fate is being repeated”. However, while contemporary developments are concerning, the analogy to the interwar years is often historically superficial. The interwar breakdowns were tied to very specific conditions (including post–World War I mass trauma and fear of communist revolution), and even then, many established democracies remained stable. Today’s threats are real but structurally different.
Useful link:
• Wednesday 4 March 2026: High-level conference “Academic Freedom in Support of Democracy” in the European House of History in Brussels.
• Livestream of the event